If you let the Florida Gators tell it, defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s “mutual courtship” with the Cincinnati Bengals this week, which culminated in reports Wednesday night indicating that he would stay in Gainesville, did not result in him getting a raise from Florida.
Per Scott Carter, writing for Florida’s official website, that’s because he already had one.
Grantham made it official Thursday that he is not a one-and-done at Florida.
The 52-year-old Virginia native returned to campus to resume his role as the Gators’ defensive coordinator following a mutual courtship with the Bengals, who interviewed Grantham on Tuesday and Wednesday to become their defensive coordinator.
Despite the interest from Cincinnati first-year coach Zac Taylor, (Dan) Mullen and Gators Athletic Director Scott Stricklin had reason to believe Grantham might stay at UF. Following Florida’s victory over Michigan in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl to cap a 10-3 turnaround season, Stricklin knew there could be interest in Grantham from other schools or the NFL.
Taking a pro-active approach and working in-step with Mullen, the Gators extended Grantham’s contract through 2022 and increased his salary to $1.8 million annually, placing Grantham among the five highest-paid defensive coordinators in college football.
Odd, isn’t it, that Florida would extend its defensive coordinator and give him a substantial raise before the NFL came calling — but only announce it afterward? Pro-actively agreeing to an extension might rob a coach and/or his agent of some leverage in case the NFL came calling, but it would also make it harder to sell a story of a wanted coach spurning another opportunity to stay at Florida ... until such an opportunity arose.
It’s almost like Florida (and Grantham, and his agent) managed this situation in a way that got everyone — save the Bengals — what they wanted.
What would you call that? A win-win situation for Grantham in which the Gators turned out the big winners?
While Mullen quickly moved to hire David Turner to fill the defensive-line coach position vacated by Sal Sunseri, another member of Mullen’s inaugural staff with NFL experience and who recently rejoined Alabama, replacing Grantham this late during the spinning of the coaching carousel was not an ideal scenario.
Stricklin and Mullen recognized that possibility last month and moved quickly to try and keep Grantham should someone make an overture. When the Bengals did, it made sense for Grantham to explore what they had to say.
He was basically in a win-win situation. In the end, the Gators turned out the big winners.
I guess you might call it that, yes.
On a more serious note, Grantham getting bumped up to $1.8 million a year would seem to push him into or near the top five in salary for assistant coaches in college football: Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko was fourth nationally at that same figure in 2018-19, while Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando was fifth at $1.71 million.
And while it’s arguable whether Grantham — or Elko, or Orlando, or any coach making $2 million or more to not even be the head coach of a college football program — is actually a “top-five” person for such a role, the market is pretty well set at this point, and big-name programs with championship aspirations like Florida can expect to have to shell out that much for their head man’s head lieutenant now and in the future.
In college football, an industry in which the upper- and middle-classes continue to reap the riches generated by underpaid laborers, that’s just the cost of doing business.